© The New Yorker Collection 1995 J.B. Handelsman from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
INAUGURAL TALK
The NASCAR Hybrid Re-invigorating the environmental movement Excerpted from the talk given at the inauguration of David Hales, October 8, 2006. By Frank E. Loy I want to talk about a cartoon. A New Yorker cartoon. It shows two men sitting in a restaurant. One says to the other, “I’m rather fortunate. I have no parents, so Medicare is no problem, and I have no children, so the environment is no problem.” It nicely captures a paradox I want to talk about today. For millions of Americans, the issue of the environment, of our relationship to the planet we inhabit, is central to our thinking. It shapes our personal and political behavior and is absolutely vital to our common future. These Americans have built an impressive movement in the last thirty-five years. The many environmental organizations are stronger than ever, and we as a nation have accomplished a great deal. And yet—and this is the paradox—as the movement has grown stronger and cleaned up rivers and the air in many of our communities, we find that globally we are falling backwards. When we compare how much we need to do just to stay even environmentally with what we actually are doing—our progress is totally inadequate. The adverse health impact of toxics in our society is growing; we’re losing species every day; our climate is changing irreversibly. How come? Because we don’t have the political will. And why? Because we have been quite unable to bring the bulk of Americans to our way of thinking. For them, the environment is far down the list of what’s important; it shapes neither their personal nor their political behavior. Quite frankly, it seems more important on this occasion to ask why this is, than to discuss any specific environmental challenge—for if we can’t understand better why this division in America exists, and what to do about it, we as a nation are doomed to make totally inadequate progress.
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Let’s tackle this by posing three questions: 1. What do we know about America’s views on the environment? 2. Why has it been so hard for the environmental community to be more persuasive? 3. What can we do?
The Facts: There are plenty of surveys that show that Americans care about the environment. But there is equally plentiful evidence that the issue does not rate high on their priority list. Last May, The Gallup Organization conducted a poll in which it asked Americans what they thought were the most important problems facing the country today. The environment ranked twenty-third. How can this be? Several reasons come to mind: • We are victims of our own success. The environmental goals, say, of Earth Day 1970, have been perceived as achieved. • While the environment is viewed as relevant, it is not seen as an immediate problem. Air pollution that causes asthma cannot be seen; the mess in Iraq is on the tube every night. • Voters believe there are negative impacts from progressive environmental policy, that stronger standards might raise taxes, cost jobs and increase governmental interference without noticeably improving our lives.